This invention relates generally to anti-rotational fasteners for electrical apparatuses primarily used in automotive vehicles and specifically to anti-rotational fasteners having a single shaft with barbs thereupon for retaining electrical connectors or wire harnesses to an automotive vehicle body panel.
The worldwide automotive market has increasingly forced automobile manufacturers and suppliers to develop more cost effective designs and methods of assembly in order to be competitive. However, the number of electrically operated devices in each vehicle has continued to increase, which requires more electrical connectors and wire harnesses. There is a corresponding increase in assembly labor time relating to wiring. Furthermore, more efficient packaging is required due to the greater wiring content while maintaining mechanical integrity and electrical continuity.
Traditionally, electrical connectors are attached to a vehicle body panel by a polymeric fastener having a cap portion with a pair of fins and a cavity which engagably locks an electrical connector thereupon and a barbed Christmas tree-type member extending downward therefrom; the fastener also contains an anti-rotational barbed locator clip protruding downwardly parallel to the Christmas tree projection. Such a device is shown as prior art in FIG. 1. This .type of anti-rotational fastener is designed to maintain a constant position of the electrical connector thereby allowing for one- handed attachment of one electrical connector half to another. However, it can be difficult for an assembler to install such a fastener into the vehicle during a blind operation where the body of the electrical connector obscures the assembler's ability to view the body panel holes since both the Christmas tree and the locator clip must be simultaneously aligned and inserted into their respective holes. Furthermore, insertion effort can be quite high due to part tolerance variations between the Christmas tree and the locator clip and due to wide variations of the modulus of elasticity caused by the hydroscopic nature of the fastener materials. Finally, while such traditional anti-rotational fasteners are conceptually adequate, in practice they tend to be somewhat difficult to manufacture because of the very complicated actions required to tool and mold such a delicate product.
Another snap-in fastener commonly used to retain wire harnesses to vehicle body panels is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,210,030 entitled "Wiring Harness Installation," issued to Ramsey, et al. on Oct. 5, 1965. This fastener, however, does not prevent rotational movement.